1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a chip type electronic component which includes a multilayer body formed by laminating a plurality of substrates and at least one internal electrode interposed between two of the substrates and an external electrode disposed on a side surface of the multilayer body and connected to the internal electrode.
2. Description of Related Art
A chip type electronic component described above is well known. Because the external electrode is connected to the internal electrode only at a small area, there is a risk that the internal and external electrodes are disconnected easily by variations in the substrate size, the position the internal electrode, and other factors.
One method of manufacturing a chip type electronic component to overcome the above problem is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 7-120913. The method includes the steps of forming a groove at a side surface of a multilayer body so as to expose an end of an internal electrode and forming an external electrode on the side surface of the multilayer body. The groove at the side surface of the multilayer body is formed via cutting using a cutting machine or via sand-blasting.
However, when the groove is formed at the side surface of the multilayer body via cutting using a cutting machine, because each chip component needs to be positioned and maintained accurately, the grooves in each chip component cannot be made efficiently and the process of manufacturing many chip components cannot be performed effectively. Moreover, it is difficult to utilize the cutting process using a cutting machine for forming the groove for microchip components because of the relatively small size of such components.
When sand-blasting is utilized for forming the groove at the side surface of the multilayer body, there is an advantage in that the side surface of the multilayer body can be roughened and thereby, the contact strength between the multilayer body and the external electrode improves.
However, it is difficult to form the groove having a depth such that the end of the internal electrode is exposed reliably when forming the groove via sandblasting. Moreover, the chip type electric components must be aligned with a pallet or a jig and the sand-blasting needs to be performed on all the respective side surfaces of the multilayer bodies where the respective internal electrodes are desired to be exposed. Therefore, the pallet and the jig prepared in accordance with each of the different size electric components are required, causing increased cost. Further, when the manufacturing processing step is required to be performed four times (i.e. sandblasting each side surface of the chip component), the processes for re-positioning and aligning the chip type electric components via a pallet or a jig are required to be performed three times.
Furthermore, in both of the above two processes (cutting and sand-blasting), only one side surface of the multilayer body can be processed at one time. When an external electrode is continuously formed at the side surface of the multilayer body and a surface adjacent to the side surface, since a sharp edge is formed at the boundary of these two surfaces, the film thickness of the external electrode can not be maintained and therefore, a disconnection between different portions of the external electrode easily occurs at the sharp edge causing a component to be defective.